The Last Two Weeks of Georges Rivac (12 page)

England, he hoped, was now all his except for Thame and Alderton where he must on no account be seen. He had only to telephone Paul Longwill, arrange for money and a change of clothes and find out whether Mrs Fanshawe was safely back at the White Hart. Irata was the main problem; he had somehow to be kept on ice. If he was arrested, his evidence of Fyster-Holmes's true allegiance with details of his visitors was going to bear out Rivac's own story. But then what of Zia? And what of himself after a juicy court case of spies and cross-channel ferries and punt poles fully reported? Any future depended on convincing the right person that this Lukash had existed—if he had—and that the Intertatry brochures were indeed as vitally important as the enemy believed.

Chapter Six

Zia was intoxicated by success. In those first days at Brussels and Valenciennes she had been only an observer, taking on responsibility beyond her orders, but still an observer. Now defence had changed into attack for the sake of Georges, her uncle and his unrevealable club. The impulsive drowning of Rippmann, a terrified reaction of which she had been ashamed, could pass conscience as a justifiable act of war. As for Fyster-Holmes, there was nothing else Georges could have done—Georges with his lance and the dragon. The dragon might not have deserved it as richly as Appinger but one way or another had it coming to him. Lucky the traitor didn't live in more decisive times when he could be cut down while still alive and his private parts burnt before his eyes!

Dear Georges, what unhesitating loyalty! If he had told the truth about the death of Rippmann they might have believed him as innocent as he was. Dear Georges, so wise in the country ways he had learned as a boy, and now so modest and unpredictable in action though his instinct usually turned out to be right! Such a gallant man and so lovable as well! And what, my little Zia, is this? I wonder if the thought has ever occurred to him at all or if his admiration is just for a girl in trouble. I wonder whether he would be shocked if—well, the sweet innocent would never see it if I'm careful.

The sun was warm. Larks sprang up in front of her and sang like very distant shepherd's pipes in Transylvania with a tune of the meeting of air and earth which defied the solidity of human music. The sky was as wide as on the plains of Hungary with smaller and more playful clouds. The grass beckoned her, daydreaming, on and on over the waves of the land, their tops breaking into the dark green foam of little woods and clumps of trees. It would be lovelier still on a horse, putting up larks and small blue butterflies with every beat of the canter. A bridle path crossed her green track. An incongruous signpost (how overcivilised they sometimes were!) announced that it went to East Ilsley. The name of the village was familiar. She must be on the edge of the famous gallops of the Berkshire Downs. Wonder if Georges can ride? I must teach him. Light hands he would have, but too gentle. Very gentle. Oh shut up, Zia! And where the hell is the Thames? I ought to be there by now.

After another mile she came on a tractor, brilliantly red and yellow, with a trailer behind it. Tractors were always eyesores instead of being camouflaged to suit their countryside. But the man standing still on the empty trailer and looking out over the rolling splendour of his home was evidently enjoying a moment of unity between himself and the land. He said good morning in a cheerful, hearty voice and she asked him if he could tell her where she was.

‘Well, that'll depend where you want to go, Miss. You're on the Ridgeway and behind you is the river and ahead of you nothing much till you come to Wantage.'

‘And Reading?'

‘Reading is about twelve mile away over there.'

‘Oh! I think I must have lost myself.'

‘Where's your car?'

‘I haven't got a car. I'm walking.'

‘Just the day for it! Where have you come from then?'

That was difficult; it might be unwise to tell the truth. But the names of such towns as she knew were all too far away. She plunged for Wallingford. It seemed to be acceptable. He highly approved of going from Wallingford to Reading the longest way round.

‘But I reckon you must have borne right instead of left,' he said. ‘Now I'm going down to East Ilsley and if you don't mind jumping on the trailer I can take you there. Then you can get a bus to Reading.'

She accepted gratefully. Time was getting on. The midday rendezvous was impossible, and the two o'clock unlikely.

Turning round in his seat, he carried on conversation over the rattle of the tractor.

‘French aren't you, if you don't mind my asking?'

‘Yes, but my husband is British.'

‘Ah, all the same you women are wherever you come from.'

‘Well, not quite.'

‘Take my wife, for instance! Clever woman she is! Don't know what I'd do without her. But when she means left, she says right. And if there ain't no weathercock handy she don't know bloody north from bloody south.'

‘What about the women who sail round the world alone?' Zia yelled back indignantly.

‘Well, you can do it east or west but you come home to the same place in the end so it don't matter'—he waved a hand at the horizon—‘now there's a soft job I wouldn't mind!'

Her eyes followed the hand to the Ridgeway. Three uniformed policemen and two dogs in leash were striding out over the high ground. It seemed very unlikely that they could have anything to do with the death of Fyster-Holmes so soon—it might not yet have been discovered—and they were miles away from the wood where she had left Georges.

‘Do you think they are after a criminal?' she asked.

‘No! Aren't none up here except the racehorse trainers and that's only in the way of business. Exercising the dogs, I reckon. Any time there's a fine day you send a man ahead with a kipper on a string and have a good walk to the nearest pub. It makes a nice change from chasing teenagers up the back streets.'

He dropped her in East Ilsley, recommended the best pub to get a snack at the bar and went on his way. Zia at once called up Paul Longwill. He was at home. She felt that now the luck was running her way.

‘I was afraid you would be in the City.'

‘And how could I be in the City, Mrs Fanshawe, when you send me . . .'

‘Presents, Mr Longwill.'

‘Presents without a word of explanation. Are you all right?'

‘Yes. But our friend is in trouble.'

‘Where are you?'

‘A place called East Ilsley. It's somewhere between the Thames and Newbury. Can you pick me up there? Now! Urgently! How long will it take you?'

‘About an hour if it's where I think it is.'

‘I'll wait for you by the church.'

She had a hearty snack at the pub and ordered a packet of sandwiches to take with her to the rendezvous, remembering that Georges must be even hungrier than she had been. At half past two Paul Longwill picked her up. He was more reserved than when they had parted the evening before.

‘You have been thinking that you believed me too easily, Paul. A mad Hungarian, no?'

‘I have been thinking that you told me as little as you possibly could. But about Georges you were really worried.'

‘And now I am more worried. I couldn't tell you all about Irata. Is he safe?'

‘Not as my valet. Impossible! Valets are for merchant bankers when they're in luck and homosexuals when they aren't.'

‘What have you done with him? What did he say?'

‘As little as possible, like you. His motorbike is in my garage and Irata is at Georges's grandmother's empty house—by courtesy of Daisy. I told her that Georges wanted him kept away from the law.'

‘And she didn't mind?'

‘Not Daisy! She still thinks of Georges as her boy and as likely as ever to get into trouble—especially as the police were asking for his address.'

‘I know. About Rippmann.'

‘Rippmann?'

‘A man who fell overboard from the Channel ferry we were on.'

‘Did he have any help in falling overboard?'

‘I don't know. He might have done.'

‘We'll leave that for now. Where is Georges?'

While they drove down to the river and on by the valley road Zia told her story: the kidnapping, the marsh, the boat, Appinger and the end.

‘And you are telling me Georges killed him?' he asked sceptically.

‘He didn't mean to. Oh, think! Can you stand in a bog and strike at a man with a long punt pole and be sure where it will hit?'

‘Show me the house when we pass it.'

When they came to the lane there was a constable on guard at the turning and they could see cars at the other end of the drive. The solid, unmistakable fact of an investigation in process appeared to convince Longwill at last that the rest of her story was true.

‘Fyster-Holmes—I know a little of him,' he said. ‘Highly esteemed but unlucky. That may be why he did not get the usual knighthood. Wherever he was posted he ran into riot and revolution. I suppose it never occurred to anyone that he might have had a finger in it himself. By God, you've got courage, Zia!'

‘Or conceit.'

‘None of us can live without some conceit, my dear. Well, there's no proof of Georges Rivac's presence at all if we keep quiet about it. But if the police pull in Irata, Georges has to come out with the whole story and he can't do that without involving you.'

‘Then he must.'

‘But your family! And hadn't you better tell me the truth about the man who fell overboard?'

‘He had followed Karel Kren and was after Georges.'

‘Great God! And nobody saw?'

‘There was a doubt.'

They arrived at the meeting of the two lanes for the four o'clock rendezvous. Zia pointed out the wood where they had rested at dawn and the patch of gorse on the hillside from which Georges ought to be watching. If he was there he could make out the arrival of Paul's white Jaguar but he did not appear.

‘Shall I go up and see?' she asked.

‘Better not. I believe criminals are expected to return to the scene of the crime. Sounds old-fashioned but it may be true.'

He drove back to the river where they walked along the bank and lay down on warm grass. The meadows were golden with buttercups—a landscape of innocent Utopia as of any European river not too far from a provincial town, with a few fishermen sitting patiently by their rods and the occasional couple with or without the children and the dog. Silence was awkward though partly covered by the charm of the flowing water so black and sinister the night before. Zia could not altogether place him, but the fact remained that he was undoubtedly discreet and the only person in the world able to help if only by giving some recognisable shape to formless and impending disaster.

‘You are quite right, Paul. I have not told you enough.'

She gave him the preface to the happenings of the night: herself, the club, her deception of Georges Rivac, the arrival of the brochures at Thame Post Office. He listened without interruption, judging her integrity, she guessed, as well as her story. At the end he said:

‘It would be useful if I knew more about this Karel Kren. I am not clear why he chose Georges.'

‘Because he was desperate. He took the first train out of Brussels, the Lille train. When he arrived he spotted that he was followed. I don't know why he did not go to the police and ask for protection—no time and no police except busy traffic police, perhaps. Or he saw that if the police were to believe him he would have to give too much away. He was just a factory director and a patriot, you see, not a trained agent. But he knew all the KGB methods. If he didn't make some quick decision, he would be found dead or unconscious with his briefcase gone. And then he remembered the Intertatry agent with his talk of Europe which had so impressed him. He managed to dodge into Georges's building, handed over the brochures of the new engine and gave him the address of Bridge Holdings. When Kren came out of the office they must have got him, perhaps on the staircase. It's all conjecture and nobody will ever know the details. What is certain is that he couldn't escape but did see a chance of killing himself.'

‘Where are the brochures now, Zia?'

‘Georges told me this morning that he had stuck them in a drainpipe in Daisy's garden. He can't see anything wrong with them himself.'

‘Well, he shouldn't be able to. Nobody should be able to until the brochures are back in Prague. Then find out who printed them at Kren's order and how many. One couldn't plant a code in the real brochure, printed and distributed by the thousand, without confusing the customers. So the KGB has only to compare the fake with the genuine, and Bob's your uncle.'

‘They will shoot my uncle.'

‘Then we have to see that they shoot Bob instead. I think it's time to go if we are to be at the rendezvous at six.'

As soon as they reached the road junction it was only too obvious that Georges would no longer be on the hillside. A couple of civilians were walking down it accompanied by something superior—to judge by his uniform—in the hierarchy of the police. There were three cars parked on the verge of the lane, one of them a police car in which an Inspector was reading an evening paper. Longwill stopped alongside him and leaned out of the window, country gentleman all over.

‘An accident, Inspector? Can I help at all?'

‘A criminal investigation, sir.'

‘Good Lord! Nothing wrong at the farm, I hope?'

‘A Mr Fyster-Holmes has been found dead under suspicious circumstances. You may know him.'

‘By name, yes.'

The Inspector folded up the paper with a slight air of disdain and handed it over.

‘You can read about it there, sir. For once they have got it nearly right.'

Paul thanked him, hoped they'd catch the bastard and drove on until they could read the report in privacy. There was not much beyond a short obituary of Fyster-Holmes with a veiled suggestion that he might have made enemies abroad in the course of his distinguished career. His Spanish servant, Diego Irata, was wanted to help police with their enquiries. He had disappeared and it was believed he had been accompanied by a woman. The number of his motorcycle was quoted.

‘And must be hidden immediately,' Paul Longwill said, turning for home. ‘Did the woman leave anything behind up there?'

‘No. But detectives couldn't miss my footprints on the bank of the creek when they got down to a thorough search.'

‘Then we should not be seen together till I find somewhere safer for the motorcycle. I'll drop you off not too far from the White Hart.'

The precaution was probably right and the walk was only a mile, but she resented it. She was dead tired and dragging herself home to the inn was almost the hardest effort of the day. After a large brandy and soda in the bar she went up to her room and lay down, longing for a bath but afraid to have one lest she should be called to the telephone. That was as well, for the call came through within quarter of an hour of her arrival. Either Georges's voice or the brandy at once returned strength.